How to stop craving sweets?

Craving sweets is a typical sign of a candida overgrowth. And eating sweets weakens your immune system in general – so how to stop craving sweets? It’s so hard to do! 

4 Solutions How to Stop Craving Sweets:

• Make lots of chicken soup (veggy option: kale & coconut) and freeze it in smaller portions for when you get hungry.

• Quick Stir fries with turkey, chicken or fish and some green vegetables are also perfect to curb your appetite for 1-2 hours. A good veggy alternative is a pancake made from chickpea flour and ground linseed
• Occasionally have some fresh nuts to snack on (almonds are best, as they are alkaline which helps your body heal). Seeds are ok, but best enjoyed pre-soaked to make them easier to digest.
• Eat lots of oily fish and use plenty of good oils like coconut oil, flax oil and avocados.

Quick Snack Tips:

• Initially you just have to be prepared for your cravings and eat foods that fill you up and are as healthy as possible. Spicy Chickpeas  – cooked chickpeas (out of a tin is fine) lightly heated up with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic granules are a good quick filler for instance if you think you can’t handle your cravings any longer.
• Another nutrient rich and filling snack to beat cravings are Green Smoothies. You can even prepare them beforehand and take them with you in a flask when you need to be somewhere without access to a kitchen with a blender.

For ladies: 3 more tips how  to stop craving sweets and to help with PMS:

• Your body is particularly craving sweet things around that time of the month when your magnesium levels are low. So a good start is to eat some brown rice, nuts, almonds, green vegetables, even in smoothie form like this one here or take a magnesium supplement  during those days.

• It might be worth taking 1 capsule (1ooo mg) evening primrose oil every day, which I found had a tremendously positive effect on my hormonal balance – I don’t have PMS at all anymore and used to have it extremely bad. Evening primrose is also good for the skin.

Bring your stress levels down:

• Do you have a lot of stress in your life? Because if you are stressed then you feel hungry more often – and how to stop craving sweets if you are accustomed to getting a quick energy boosts all the time and you feel really low if you don’t?
• Always eat breakfast, even if you are not hungry. This will help to keep your blood sugar levels constant and to prevent cravings.
• Start exercising (brisk walking will do as a start). I always find that I am less hungry when I regularly move more.

Healthy Snacks:

• Your healthiest option would be to eat steamed green veggies lightly spiced with coconut oil and sesame seeds or pumpkin seed oil salt and pepper

• Hummus with veggy sticks
• Cucumber if you can stomach it ? (I often eat a few slices with my meals to feel full quicker, and to calm my digestive system.)
  
• Combine vegetables with a small amount of steamed fish/ chicken or quinoa (except quinoa only a few weeks into the candida diet, not straight away). Protein makes you feel full.
  

That’s why eating a tub of probiotic yoghurt is also a great way to stop cravings. This is the yoghurt that I love: It’s made with sheep milk, is very thick and creamy with a lovely milk taste. (I buy it at Sainsbury’s in Truro).

• Once your candida levels are under control you can also enjoy a few slices of green apple, which is a cravings suppressant due to the pectin content. And grapefruit works because it is so bitter.
• If the cravings get unmanageable have a few bites of cooked brown rice with coconut oil and cinnamon – that helps to keep your blood sugar levels at an even keel (no more than a small bowl of rice though and not every day).
• Avoid rice and corn cakes if possible – they are processed to death and foster candida rather than suppress it. But if it’s either that or a sugary treat, go for rice cakes. Try and top it with something nutrient rich though. Here are some easy examples.

Sweet Treats:

• Your healthiest sweet option would be cherry tomatoes and red pointed pepper slices.
• As a special treat and if it agrees with you could have some oatmeal porridge (using gf free oats or quinoa) with rice milk and roasted coconut which is nice and sweet or steamed butter nut squash with coconut flour (from stage 3 of the acd onwards).
  
• It’s a good idea to have  cooked brown rice with rice milk and cinnamon ready to munch.  Or just cooked brown rice with coconut oil which would be even better.
• If all else fails you could nibble on a spoon of almond butter or eat a piece of carob bar.
• I often snack on small pancakes (gf free or spelt) that I whip out of the freezer and quickly toast. Coconut pancakes are best, because they don’t contain grain flour, so they are completely allergy friendly and cannot feed Candida.

 Drinks that keep cravings at bay:

• Drinking  green juices also help to keep cravings down a little bit.

Have you tried spirulina or chlorella? It’s a green powder made from a very mineral rich algae. You can just mix it in with water or take it as capsules and it speeds up your metabolism – giving you a little bit more energy and curbing your appetite (cravings are often a sign of a mineral deficiency – so make sure you stock up on good broth and vit & mineral complex)

• Drinking water with lemon juice before a meal curbs your appetite and has the added vit c bonus.
• Pumpkin seeds oil, sesame oil and perhaps a handful of pumpkin and sunflower seeds (preferably pre-soaked) with a little salt and spices are also fab ways of making boring veg taste more interesting.
• Ginger tea (boiling slices of fresh ginger root for 10-20 mins in water) helps, too. That’s what I drink these days when I feel tired. It also helps with weight loss ?
• I personally found drinking green Jasmin tea helpful – it’s mood uplifting, appetite suppressant and it gives you something to do when you find yourself pacing up and down to the refrigerator or kitchen cupboard, foraging around for something eatable.
• Drink at least 2-3 liters of good quality water and herbal teas.

• I’m not saying you should drink coffee – but a healthy coffee substitute every now and again perhaps. I love Yannoh (grain based & alkalizing). It always takes my appetite away for quite some time after drinking it.
• One tip how to stop craving sweets I was given recently from a fellow candida sufferer is to take an essential oil blend. It’s called “slim and sassy”. Apparently it works a treat. I haven’t tried it myself. I can see that working, I’d be concerned about it nuking all the friendly bacteria in your gut though.

Me and my Cravings!

Before I found out I had Candida I had such insane hunger attacks that I got very grumpy if I didn’t get a snack every couple of hours at least. I would eat whatever I could lay my hands on, with virtually no self control. Over the years I have found ways to deal with sudden desires to eat and I would make sure that I had healthy foods at hand like the ones above (or at least some toasted Sesame Soda bread and a boiled egg) to prevent me from eating something sugary.

Of course you can’t fully rid yourself of your cravings just by eating sensibly. You generally will have to follow a specific Candida Diet while taking antifungal medication and probiotics to re-build your immune system. But clever food choices go a long way towards feeling great.

And after just a few weeks on a sugar free diet your cravings for sweet foods will be a lot less if not totally gone.

I can finally walk past a supermarket aisle of freshly baked bagels and custard cakes now without the overbearing urge to have some. And I can go from breakfast to lunch without my thoughts continuously circling about what I could eat and how to stop craving sweets. What a transformation! Tell me, what did you or do you find hard to walk past and say no to?

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